Don't Cry For Pain
by Jane McBrennen
Summary: AU. Pansy Parkinson is not the girl everyone thinks she is, and her behavior after her parents' deaths has proved it. Transported to post-WWII era France during a potion accident, she meets med student, Hannibal Lector. Will it be love?
1. The Grief Stricken Miss Parkinson

Don't Cry For Pain, an _Harry Potter/Hannibal Rising_ (Pansy Parkinson/Hannibal Lector) Fan Fiction

Synopsis: AU. Pansy Parkinson is not the girl everyone thinks she is, and her behavior after her parents' deaths has proven it. What is the dark secret behind Pansy's transformation? But just when things begin to change for the better in Pansy's life, she is transported to post-WWII era France during a school experiment gone wrong, where she meets pre-med student, Hannibal Lector. After a bumpy (and frustrating) road to redemption, will it be love?

Pairings:

Main Pairing: Pansy Parkinson/Hannibal Lector

Secondary Pairing(s): Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy

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**A/N: Hey. This is my first fanfic. If anyone has any recomendations or tips, I would be happy to hear them. Also, if there are any specific pairings that you like, tell me about them and I'll see if I can't include them in the story. **

**Thanks for reading. **

**_~ Jane McBrennen _**

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_Don't Cry For Pain_

**_Chapter One:_ _"The Grief-Stricken Miss Parkinson."_ **

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_Leading Members of The Wizarding World Murdered! _

_Late last night, Pansy Anne Parkinson, only daughter of Tobias and Lucinda Parkinson, floo'd to Auror headquarters to report the murder of her beloved parents. Between the poor young woman's tears and sobs, the authorities managed to obtain the circumstances in which the traumatized Ms. Parkinson found her parents. _

_She had been staying with a friend (who shall remain nameless) for an extended visit, and was to return home last night. Imagine the horror of being greeted, not by the faces of your beloved parents, but their bloody corpses instead. The events that took place in the Parkinson mansion are still not yet fully known, and may never be. All that is known is that the way in which the murders were committed was so brutal, so grotesque, that the authorities have refused to allow the public to be given what little information they have._

_A reliable source has disclosed to me that, as of yet, there are no known suspects. _

_It is unknown as to whether the grief-stricken Ms. Parkinson will have recovered sufficiently from the shock of her parents' deaths to be able to attend the new semester at Hogwart's School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, which will begin in only two weeks. _

_The whole of the wizarding world all mourn the loss of the beloved Parkinsons, pillars of civilized society. _

_And to you, dear Ms. Parkinson, we at the Daily Prophet give you our most sincere and heartfelt condolences. _

_~ Rita Skeeter, The Daily Prophet_

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_P~P_

Pansy Parkinson wanted to laugh as she read the pathetic article for what must have been the millionth time in the past two weeks. As a matter of fact, she did laugh.

She didn't even seem to notice the looks everyone on the Hogwarts Express was giving her; some pitying, some suspicious, and more than a few that were a mixture of both. She simply couldn't help laughing when she remembered exactly what happened that night.

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_P~P_

After she'd floo'd back to her room that night and changed into her dinner robes, she'd walked down the long winding staircase as she had a thousand times before.

As she walked down, she began to notice how dark the house was, as though the house-elves had forgotten to light the lamps. It occurred to Pansy that her parents must be out, but heaven help the poor creatures if her mother and father found out! She thought it strange that they would have forgotten – they'd never done so before.

Pansy continued her trek downstairs, and it was only when she'd reached the foot of the staircase that she noticed the total disarray. Irreplaceable vases scattered in pieces on the floor, unique paintings torn and hanging askew, the face of a once priceless statue, now lying on the floor.

_Something's wrong_, Pansy thought uneasily. _Something's _really_ wrong_. Pansy tread cautiously through the entryway, careful to be as noiseless as possible. That's when she saw it. The _blood_. There was a trail of it, almost as if… someone had been dragged across the floor into the parlor. Pansy shuddered, but like a girl possessed, continued madly to follow the bloody trail. She entered the parlor and her world seemed to implode upon itself.

_Blood_, Pansy thought. _There's so much blood._ And then her world faded to black.

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A/N: I forewarn you, Hannibal Lector will be joining the light side of the force by the end of the story. In my opinion, he's just too good-looking to waste as a bad guy. Please do review. I need as much help as I can get. Thank you.

**_~ Jane McB. _**


	2. She Doesn't Cry For Pain

**Hey. Really sorry it took me so long to update. I wanted this chapter to be longer than the last one, so it took a bit more planning. I did it in one solid go though. I've never written that much in one go before. It was pretty great. :D **

**Well, once again, reviews of all kinds are welcome. I hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoyed writing it. **

**A special shout out goes to ****MidniteWriter15**** for giving me my first review, and another big shout out to my mom for helping my with this story and being uber supportive. **

**Thanks for reading! **

**:D **

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Don't Cry For Pain

_**Chapter Two: "She Doesn't Cry For Pain" **_

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Pansy was brought back to the present by the entrance of Draco Malfoy, self-professed Slytherin King, and his two mindless minions, Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle. None of them bothered to say "hello," let alone ask how she was after her parents' sudden demise, although that was perfectly fine by her. Pansy ignored Crabbe as he took a seat next to her. Instead, she continued to silently stare out of the only window in the small compartment, once again losing herself to her thoughts – though this time they took a slightly different turn.

Pansy fought vomiting as she stole a glance at the white-blonde haired boy sitting across from her. Draco Malfoy disgusted her to no end, and yet ever since first receiving her letter of acceptance to Hogwart's School of Witchcraft And Wizardry, she had been forced to play the head-over-heels, doe-eyed girl with a severe crush on him.

The Malfoys were - as it were - the crème de la crop of wizarding society. Just having your name coupled with theirs was enough to earn you reverence, not to mention the countless invitations to every society gathering worth attending. So, from the moment her letter arrived, Pansy's parents made absolutely certain that she understood how important having a relationship with the youngest Malfoy, soon to be her schoolfellow, was to them. A shockingly cold chill crept down Pansy's spine as she remembered her parents' idea of… '_incentive_.' The wave of nausea became almost unbearable, but like the soldier Pansy always was – always _had_ to be, she fought it, and not surprisingly, soon had herself under control again. She thought of other things – more amusing things, like how easily everyone was fooled by her lies and pretending. She had played her part well, and fooled them all: Draco, the entire school, even her parents. Yes, she'd spared herself much pain with her lies and manipulations. But no more. She was free to do as she pleased now. No more pretending, no more lies. Her heart lifted at the idea of being able to be friends with whom she pleased, not having to laugh at jokes that didn't make sense, just because Draco told them, and finally being able to get the grades she wanted. She no longer had to pretend to be intellectually retarded, just to make Draco look good. Even on her worst day, she could beat the pants off of Draco Malfoy where anything academic was concerned. She laughed outright at the thought.

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D~M

It was almost two hours into the journey to Hogwart's when Draco was startled out of his tirade over Hermione Granger's inferiority, by the strangest laugh from in front of him. He looked over at the girl whose presence he had hardly noticed, aside from noting that she was in fact in the same car with him. It suddenly occurred to him how uncharacteristically quiet Pansy had been the entire trip. Normally, he would have been peeling her off of him about now or been plugging his ears, praying her mouth would fall off, so that the mindless chatter would cease; but not only had she not jumped him the moment she laid eyes on him, she hadn't even so much as acknowledged his presence – which scared the superiority right out of him. And that laugh! It had a disturbing resemblance to his insane aunt Bellatrix's laugh – may she find some semblance of peace in Azkaban.

It had been almost a full minute and Pansy still continued to laugh. Draco decided that enough was enough.

"Pansy?" he asked tentatively. Pansy's head snapped in his direction so quickly, he was surprised that it didn't come flying off. She was no longer laughing.

"_What the HELL do you want!!?"_ Draco had almost wet himself, he was so startled by her reaction. From the looks of it, Crabbe actually _had_ wet himself. And if looks could kill, Draco Malfoy would have been little more than a pile of smoldering ash. As a matter of fact, if he didn't get out of that compartment in the next five _seconds_, he being nothing more than a pile of ash was a very likely scenario, if the look on Pansy's face were anything to judge by. So, he gathered his things faster than a snitch, and ran from the train compartment, Crabbe and Goyle less than seconds behind.

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P~P

Pansy smiled, glad to be rid of the immature adolescent boys. She was in no humor to indulge mindless idiots, who are followed by other mindless idiots.

She rose from her seat to close the compartment door that had been left open during the boys' hasty escape, ignoring the countless people gawping at her. Pansy turned around, nearly tripping over the _Daily Prophet_ she had been holding earlier. Neither knowing, nor caring how it had ended up on the floor, she kicked it under her seat, with a little more venom than would be expected from someone with the newfound freedom Pansy found herself in possession of. She resumed her seat and was just beginning to think about all the things she could do with her liberty, when Hogwart's came into view. It wouldn't be long before the Howart's Express reached the station. From there, the students and teachers would pile into the carriages pulled by thestrals and make their way to the castle.

Thestrals. Horse-like creatures that can only be seen by those who have witnessed death.

Pansy could see them. She'd been able to for years, ever since… since Arellia had died.

Pansy's hands tightened into fists and her teeth clenched painfully, but anything was better than the aching in her heart at the thought of holding her little sister's cold, motionless body in her arms.

Memories assaulted Pansy like thousands of knives slashing through her body; the countless nights holding her sister, telling her everything was going to be alright, when she knew it wouldn't; wiping perspiration from her little sister's brow as she sweated out a fever, because her parents wouldn't call a Healer, afraid that he would see the girls' near-starving condition; and then that final, fateful night. The night Arellia's suffering had ended.

Pansy recalled vividly the hours she spent nursing her sister, trying anything she could to make her well again. Charms, healing spells, incantations of any kind that might help even a little, all performed without the use of a wand, and most more advanced than even a seventh-year Hogwart's student could handle.

Necessity had taught Pansy that where there's a will, there's a way. And with a little sister to take care of, she found a way to learn magic without a wand or her parents' knowledge.

She could out-do most Healers on her worst day, and as for the rest of magic… well, she wasn't too shabby there either.

But it was all for naught, for after six long hours, twelve minutes, and seven or eight seconds of fighting with every breath in her for her sister's life, Pansy watched as Arellia drew her last breath.

There was nothing more she could do.

Pansy gently closed her sister's eyelids, and cautiously, almost as though not to wake the child from her peaceful slumber, pulled back the covers and slipped into the bed, pulling her beloved sister into her lap. Pansy could still feel the cold weight of Arellia's head leaning on her shoulder.

Pansy had stroked the corpse's long, dark hair countless times during that long night and well into the morning.

She didn't shed a single tear; the only movement in the cold, dark room was the stroking of her sister's hair and the occasional blinking of Pansy's eyes.

The sun was just rising when her parents came home. They had been at a party. A _party_. Their four year-old daughter was dying of pneumonia and they were sitting at a fancy dinner table in their finest attire, laughing at jokes that weren't funny, and clinking their champagne glasses in toasts that they didn't mean.

At eight years-old, Pansy was a better parent than both of them put together – and she still couldn't save the little girl she'd been almost a mother to. Arellia was born a weak babe as it was. That coupled with irregular meals and the harsh conditions of their small chilly room, made Arellia susceptible to all kinds of maladies.

Pansy remembered trying to hold onto her sister a little while longer when the small arms of multiple house elves tried to lift her away. She had been too weak to fight for more than a few moments, and soon relented care of the small, fragile body of her little "Ellie" to the house elves.

Pansy had pulled her knees to her chest, and remained on the bed in that position until a house elf came and helped her prepare for Arellia's funeral. She must have stayed in that room, on that bed, and in that position for days before that house elf, Dobby, came and got her, but she neither knew, nor cared.

The funeral had been a fantastic event; Pansy's father had greeted guests, mostly business associates, with false solemnity, while her mother dabbed at the tears she had forced into her eyes using a crying spell with an embroidered handkerchief, and all the while Pansy fought the urge to jump into her sister's open grave and allow them to bury her too.

Nothing - no physical pain could compete with what she had been feeling. All she had wanted to do was die.

But she didn't. She _wouldn't_. Her sister would _want_ her to go on, and Pansy knew it.

Pansy's had been the only dry eyes. She hated everyone at that funeral for that. How dare they contaminate her sweet Ellie's grave with their forced tears? Arellia had hated tears, especially Pansy's. She said it made her sad to see people cry.

So Pansy never cried, in front of Arellia or otherwise. And Pansy certainly wouldn't cry at her sister's funeral.

Besides, to cry for her own loss, her own pain would be selfish and weak, and Pansy refused to be either. Her sister was happy and safe, and no matter where she was, she was better off.

Pansy believed in heaven and hell. There was so little justice in this world that there just _had_ to be a place where people got what they deserved, whether good or bad. And Pansy had no doubt in her mind that her sweet baby sister was a carefree winged cherub, laughing and playing with all of the other little cherubs at that very moment.

And it was at that very moment Pansy was brought out of her reverie by the screeching of the tracks as the Hogwart's Express came to a stop.

They had arrived at the station and Pansy still hadn't changed into her school robes. Pansy got up and pulled the blinds down on the small window of the compartment door. Quickly, she pulled her wand out of her pocket and ignoring the no-magic-outside-of-school rule, she said a hasty spell, and her robes suddenly appeared on her. She put her wand into her robe pocket and turned to the large compartment window to check her appearance in the reflection of the glass.

To her chagrin, a single teardrop had escaped her full eyes, and was now resting upon her left cheek. Pansy hastily brushed the offending droplet away, and luggage in hand, left the compartment.

No. Pansy Parkinson would not cry for pain.

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**A/N: So, how'd you like it? Bit of a twist, giving her a sister, huh? How were the emotions from Pansy? I know she's really ooc in this fic, but that's kinda the point. I'm trying to make her a slightly different person, while giving her a **_**reason**_** to hide behind her normal façade of witchiness. Was it too much? Please review and give me your opinions. I love hearing from you guys! **

**Thanks for reading! **

**_~ Jane_ **

**Also, I've decided that I'm not updating until I get at least six reviews for each chapter. I have way too many hits without reviews. **


	3. Choosing Sides

**Okay, since nobody loves me enough to review, I've decided to go ahead and update anyway.  
And don't think I don't see all the people who've been reading this, who haven't reviewed. I have.  
Which is why I'm giving a big shout out to Cynnamon Spyce for reviewing all the chapters I have up so far.  
And anyone else who reviews will also be given honorable mention.  
Thanks to everyone who read and/or reviewed. **

_**~ Jane McB. **_

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**_Don't Cry For Pain_**

_**Chapter Three: "Choosing Sides." **_

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Pansy took in her surroundings as she entered the Great Hall of Hogwart's School of Witchcraft And Wizardry; the long wooden tables that seated the students, separated into different Houses by the different colored banners hanging above them; the walls made of ancient stone; the table at the end of the expansive hall, where teachers already sat conversing.

Pansy spotted a new face amongst the teachers; a rather obese, short woman dressed completely in the most atrocious shade of pink Pansy had ever laid eyes on. Her face was pale, framed by short, curly hair of a mousy-brown color. Her appearance resembled that of an ugly, poisonous weed, attempting to hide its true nature behind flower petals not its own. Little did Pansy know how close her observation was to the truth.

By now Pansy had walked as far as halfway into the hall, and now stood in between the Slytherin and Gryffindor tables. The Slytherin House banners' green and silver colors caught her eye. Resourcefulness, cunning, ambition. The qualities that made a Slytherin… well, _Slytherin_. Pansy possessed these traits, she knew. And yet…

From the very first year she attended Hogwart's, it had never been a good fit. She just wasn't happy in Slytherin, with all its lies and deceit. Then again, she supposed it was her own fault, as she had all but forced the Sorting Hat to put her there. It had been made very clear to Pansy by her parents, that if she came home without being placed in the same house as Draco Malfoy, the consequences would be… well, shall we say, _"dire."_

So, Pansy had formed a plan. She had previously read in several books that the Sorting Hat made the decision of what House a person would be in by reading their mind and analyzing their personality and preferences. Having perfected the art of Occlumency and Legilimency, Pansy created false memories and an altogether new personality – one that would be a shoe-in for Slytherin – while hiding her true self and emotions.

But, regardless of her skill in those arts, Pansy had been terrified when it was her turn to be sorted. She hadn't known for certain that her plan would work, or what would happen if what her parents had done to her sister and continued to do to herself, was discovered. Would she be sent to an orphanage? Voldemort had grown up in an orphanage and look what happened to him. Pansy had no desire to see the inside of a place that could turn a helpless child into the most evil wizard to ever exist in the wizarding world.

But her worries had been unfounded, for the Sorting Hat placed her in Slytherin almost as quickly as it had Draco, without having discovered anything about her so-called "home" life.

Pansy had always wondered what House she would have been placed in if she had left Legilimency and Occlumency out of it. Secretly, she had always hoped that it would be Gryffindor, although she knew that Ravenclaw, being the more studious House, would have been more likely. She had always hoped that on some level, she possessed the trademark daring, chivalry, and courage that Gryffindors were so well known for. Which was why Pansy now stood in between the Slytherin and Gryffindor tables, torn between what she wanted, and what was expected of her.

Pansy was still staring at the Slytherin banners, when a swift breeze blew through the Hall. For a moment it seemed to dance around the Slytherin banners, before sweeping down towards Pansy. It tugged at her robes, pulling her in the direction of the Gryffindor table. When Pansy continued to hesitate, the breeze became more insistent.

Pansy was well aware that everyone in the Hall was now seated, and most were staring at her. She looked up toward the head table where the teachers were seated. The Headmaster was looking at her, as though he were going to ask her why she was not also seated.

So, Pansy made a quick decision. Turning to her left, she sat at the Gryffindor table – right next to Hermione Granger.

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**Hey, thanks for reading. Please review and let me know what you think. **

**_~ Jane McB. _**


	4. Perspectives

**_Don't Cry For Pain_**

**Chapter Four: "_Perspectives_."**

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Hey,

**Sorry it took so long to post. What do you think? **

**Special thanks to reviewers: **_**Swizzle4, Alex, and Cynnamon Spyce**_**, as well as two anonymous reviewers. I thank you. **

**Reviews = Love :)**

**Thanks for reading, **

**_~ Jane McB. _**

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What in Heaven's name…!?

Hermione thought, as Pansy Parkinson silently took a seat next to her. Hermione stared in open-mouthed shock at the dark-haired girl.

_Pansy Parkinson is sitting next to _me_ at the _Gryffindor_ table!? But that's… that's just not _possible! Hermione thought in panicked disbelief.

Hermione looked over at Ron and Harry. Harry was staring at Parkinson in wide-eyed confusion, while Ronald looked as though he might faint at any moment – and who could blame him? After all, this is the same girl who hung on Malfoy's every syllable, and although she had never _directly_ insulted any of the Golden Trio, she had laughed at every joke, every barb aimed at them. And now here she was, sitting next to Gryffindor's resident know-it-all – committing _social suicide_.

A student of one House sitting at an opposing House's table in the Great Hall was absolutely unheard of, maybe even forbidden. As it had never happened before, due to House rivalry, Hermione had never had cause to know, but now that it had, she had every intention of finding out as soon as dinner was over. She'd been planning on going to the Library after dinner anyway, to get a head start on her O.W.L.s. As it was, it was going to drive her crazy to go through dinner, not knowing.

As Hermione watched Parkinson pick nonexistent lint from her robes, she couldn't help but wonder if Parkinson's sudden, but apparent lack of regard to social standing was due to her parents' violent murders. The Parkinson murder it seemed was all anyone was talking about these days. It had been when Hermione had gone to Diagon Alley with the Weasleys to purchase school supplies that she had first heard of it. As there were currently no suspects in the case, a good deal of speculation was taking place. Some said it was an old enemy of Mr. Parkinson's that had done it. Some said that Pansy Parkinson had killed her parents, and that was why she wasn't very broken up about it, although Hermione highly doubted it. There seemed very little reason for Parkinson to want to kill her parents, and although she may not be Mother Theresa, she certainly didn't seem the type to go around hacking her parents to pieces. After all, she wasn't Lizzy Borden.

Hermione had read the _Daily Prophet_ article on the Parkinson murder, and although to the untrained eye the feelings expressed in it might appear genuine, Hermione knew better than to trust anything written by Rita Skeeter. But even so, to see Parkinson so calm, so at ease, as though nothing in the world had happened...

She seemed almost… _indifferent_.

_And was that a… a _smile?_ Is she actually _smiling!? Hermione thought horrified. She had been expecting composure, as Parkinson didn't seem the type to break down and cry for all the world to see, but this… this _indifference_? She seemed almost… happy.

The likelihood of Parkinson killing her parents wasn't beginning to seem all that unlikely after all.

Hermione nearly jumped out of her robes when she was actually addressed by the girl in question.

"So, are you pretty worried about O.W.L.s?"

Hermione didn't get a chance to answer before Dumbledore stood and began his welcoming speech.

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For the first time in years, Albus Dumbledore was good and truly speechless. Never had a student, or anyone for that matter, so shocked him as Pansy Parkinson had when she had sat, not at her own House's table, but at the table of Slytherin's sworn enemy, Gryffindor. For a man like Albus Dumbldore to be so shocked that he could not speak was itself unspeakable. The man who always had something to say, the man who (almost) always had the answer, the man who knew everything about everybody, except, perhaps Voldemort, was never ever speechless.

Albus had always hoped to eventually dissolve the Houses into one House so that the constant feuds might cease, but he knew that such an event would very likely not take place in his lifetime as the parents of the students would certainly oppose such an occurrence. To see someone like Miss Parkinson do something so in opposition to the expectations of others, for her to defy custom at the cost of her social life, for a _Slytherin_ student to sit at the _Gryffindor_ table was something that had never in the history of Hogwart's ever happened before.

He had to wonder if this was not some part of the aftershock of her parents' deaths, and yet she seemed… so calm, so relaxed, as though everything was just as it had been before. Actually, now that Albus was _really_ looking at Miss Parkinson, it seemed rather obvious that she was more carefree and relaxed than she had ever seemed at her own table, or at any time in the past that he could recall.

She seemed completely unaffected by her parents' demise. Albus suddenly realized that perhaps he didn't know everything about everyone after all.

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Severus Snape had never been so outraged in the entirety of his life. What betrayal was this? One of his own students from his own House was making nice with that insufferable Gryffindor know-it-all? And Miss Parkinson, at that? Had the girl gone mad? Besides, wasn't it against the rules for a student to sit at the table of a House, not their own?

Severus looked over at the Headmaster with a withering look that demanded some sort of action from him. The Headmaster's eyes twinkled merrily and he winked at Severus just before rising to make the Welcoming Speech. He wasn't going to do a thing.

Severus wanted nothing more than to hex him.

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For the second time that day, Pansy Parkinson had shocked Draco Malfoy speechless. To sit at the Gryffindor table was bad enough, but did she have to sit next to _her_? Never in his entire life had Draco felt so envious of another human being.

For years Draco had longed for the attention of one, Hermione Granger. Unfortunately, her muggle heritage made his feelings for her dangerous to both of them. If ever his father found out… well, to say the least, Hermione and Draco would _both_ be in serious mortal danger.

_Hermione._ What wouldn't he do for his Hermione? Having been raised by a father like his, Draco had never really understood what love was until he met Hermione. How it killed him to see her cry when he called her dirty names he didn't even mean. How he longed to tell her how he really felt. Draco knew that he sounded somewhat like a bad romance novel, but he didn't care. If the danger were only to himself, he would have told her long ago. Society be damned! _Pride_ be damned! He didn't care if he looked like a fool. All he wanted was for her to say she'd even consider loving him.

Seeing her everyday and not being able to touch her, hold her, tell her he loved everything about her from her frizzy hair and freckled nose, to her bossy know-it-all attitude, was absolute torment. To see Pansy take the place he'd so longed for by her side, talking to her, smiling at her, perhaps even becoming friends with her, made him want to jump up out of his seat and throw himself off the Astronomy Tower. It was too much for anyone to bear.

He'd never hated clingy, snarky, former Slytherin Queen, Pansy Parkinson more than when he jumped out of his seat to head to his room, not caring about the requirement that students remain in the Great Hall during the Welcoming Speech, which was taking place that very moment.

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Tell me what you think! I love to hear from you. Also, if you can think of better chapter names, I would definitely consider them.

Thanks for reading!

**_~ Jane McB. _**


	5. If Only

_**Don't Cry For Pain **_

_**Chapter Five: "If Only." **_

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A/N: Hey. It's my birthday today which is why I'm posting again so soon. I really hope you like it. Please review as a it is my birthday. It would mean so much to me. :D

**Love you all! Thanks for reading! **

**_~ Jane McB._**

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Pansy walked into the empty common room of Slytherin House, having just come back early from dinner in the Great Hall. As much as she had loved talking with Hermione (they were on first name terms now), she couldn't bear the whispers and looks any longer. She was just too tired to deal with those worthless busybodies anymore. What business did they have to judge her when even Dumbledore had remained silent on the subject?

Pansy sighed in frustration. Why did everything have to be so complicated? Pansy had been so nervous and unsure, just standing there in the Great Hall while everyone stared at her, as though she were a curiosity in a Knockturn Alley shop. She hadn't meant to sit at the Gryffindor table. Well, then again maybe she had. Subconsciously a part of Pansy had always wanted that camaraderie that seemed so common between Gryffindors, especially the Golden Trio. And when she saw that empty seat…

And that breeze! It was like it was just begging her to sit there, pulling her, leading her, telling her, "That's where you belong. Go. Take your rightful place."

When everything down to her very _gut_ was telling her to go and sit next to Hermione Granger, how could she do otherwise? It wasn't as though she had hurt anybody by sitting there. Yes, it was against the rules. Yes, it hadn't been done before. And yes, it was probably one of the biggest betrayals since that rat, Pettigrew, betrayed the Potters, but who were they to judge?

_Stupid, narrow-minded gossips!_ Pansy thought bitterly. She knew she would have to deal with the repercussions of talking and sitting next to one of Slytherin's favorite targets, but at this point, she couldn't care less. She was irritated, but her social life as it had been last year meant nothing to her now. Now she had new goals, new plans, new dreams, and a new life, and with that would come new friends – _real_ friends.

Friends who actually cared whether or not your parents were just brutally murdered. For heaven's sake, even Hermione had asked how she was, and this was a girl she was laughing at and making fun of only a semester ago!

On the carriage ride to the Castle, not only did the Slytherin students not ask how she was, they wouldn't even share a coach with her. She had to ride the entire way by herself. Yes, she probably would have given anyone who talked to her the same treatment she gave Draco, but still! These were people she'd gone to school with for years, and they couldn't even be bothered to ask if she was coping!?

_Aargh! People are just so stupid sometimes!_ Pansy stomped up the stairs, trying to calm down. She thought of the long conversation she had had with Hermione.

Although it was rather awkward at first, things went rather smoothly. Actually, considering Pansy had committed the unspeakable, things went bloody brilliant! They talked mostly of the upcoming O.W.L.s, and their coming grades for the rest of the semester, while Hermione's genius friends gawped at her, their mouths open like bloody fish. The red-headed one had actually fallen out of his seat when she said, "Pass me the pumpkin juice please." It had been hilarious; the whole table seemed to go up in laughter. That Potter boy had been the one to pass the juice to her when all was said and done. They'd shared a look, just a moment in passing. But it seemed as if he was saying that on some level, he accepted her into their little group. His eyes spoke to her, said so much in that moment. _I understand. I forgive you. I've been hurt too._ It had been enough to almost make her cry.

Pansy had finally made it to her room, and she managed to collapse on her bed. Suddenly struck with random thought, Pansy wondered if she hadn't been born in the wrong time.

_I mean it's possible, right? That when they were lining people up, I was accidently bumped to the wrong time and place._

She wondered what time and place could have been hers. _Something less complicated than the one I'm in now, that's for sure._ _And definitely in a time when they had indoor loo's. The 60's? Naw, I'm not the hippie type. I don't really want to be a flapper, so the 20's are out, and in the 30's there was that whole world war thing going on, so definitely not that era_. _But maybe sometime after the war? The war ended, what was it? 1945, 1946? So, maybe the late 40's, early 50's? Yeah, that was for her, but not some lame-o place like the States, with their poodle skirts and drive-in movies._ _No, somewhere sophisticated, that's for me. Maybe France? I've always wanted to see the Eiffel Tower, ever since I saw it on a post card in a shop window, when I was a kid. So that settles it. France, early 1950's. That's where I'm supposed to be. _

Pansy could just see herself now, smoking a cigarette on one of those fancy stick thingies, in a hot little number, definitely in black, snapping her fingers to snazzy jazz music in a dark, smoky club. She'd be wearing a beret of course too. And a really sexy guy, all muscles, would come up and they'd snap their fingers together in perfect harmony with the music. And they'd dance together, just like in that movie, _An American In Paris_, except she would be the foreigner. He'd tell her sweet things in French, like how beautiful she was, and how much he loved her. He'd bring her candy and flowers, write her poetry. The works! And all for her. He'd love her all just for herself. _Yeah_, she thought. _It'd be perfect. Beautiful even._ She sighed longingly. _If only._

Pansy quickly slipped under the covers when she heard her roommates coming upstairs to unpack and catch up. Millicent Bulstrode and a couple of other girls walked into the room, and seeing Pansy facing opposite them, still in her clothes, they assumed she was asleep. Pansy had to endure their cruel and endless gossip about her until sometime around three in the morning when they finally called it quits.

_If only._


	6. Where Would You Be?

_**Don't Cry For Pain **_

_**Chapter Six: "Where Would You Be?" **_

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**A/N: Hey, sorry for the lull in updates. Things have been crazy. :D  
I so appreciate all those who've stuck with me so far. _Don't Cry For Pain_ is almost at 100 hits! Now if I could only get you all to review... ;) **

**This is a very pivotal chapter in this story. It's 4,029 words, only 2,000 words short of the length the entire story was before this chapter. It's long because it's vital. I'm really excited because Pansy is really close to meeting Hannibal. I would love to know where you'd like this story to go from here. I would love to hear from you, so _please_ review. Anything, no matter how short it is, even if it's just, "Hi," it would still mean a lot to me. **

**I thank you all my beloved readers, especially: Alex, Cynnamon Spyce, Swizzle 4, and MidniteWriter15 for reviewing. **

**_~ Jane McB. _**

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Wonky.

The whole school had gone absolutely _wonky_.

It had been three weeks since that horrid night of having to listen to Millicent's gossip, and now it seemed the whole school had gone mad. Pansy had had just about enough of it.

It all started the day after the Welcoming Feast. Millicent was trying to move in on the position of Slytherin Queen, but the Slytherin King just wasn't biting.  
Pansy had known about Draco's crush on Hermione since… well, the beginning of time – or at least since first year. He hid it well enough from most people, but Pansy had a rather special sort of intuition when it came to people. She could read them no matter how complex they seemed to others. Now, although Draco might have appeared the heartless daddy's-boy bully on the outside, anyone who truly knew him, knew what a sensitive, caring individual he really was – which basically left anyone who wasn't Pansy on the outs of his personality. Pansy knew Draco inside out, better than she did anyone else. Having to deal with her parents' constant pressure about a relationship with Draco made knowing how to repel him a top priority on her to-do list. You know what they say: "Keep your friends close, but the school bully that your parents want you to date, closer." So, she did. And she figured out a perfect balance between Draco's official girlfriend and his most feared and hated enemy. She guessed that she landed somewhere in the "unofficial girlfriend" category – or at least in the general vicinity thereof.

Knowing him as she did, it hardly came as a surprise to Pansy that from day one Draco went for sweet, intelligent, sassy know-it-all, Hermione Granger. She was right up his alley, and probably one of the few people who could handle him without involving murder.

But the problem now was that no one else – including Millicent, knew about Draco's feelings – and they couldn't know. Pansy understood his reasons for the most part; concern for Hermione not being the least. Lucius Malfoy was, at best, a dangerous man. He'd be a danger to both Hermione and Draco if it was ever discovered that Draco was in love with her.

The problem was that everyone now believed that Draco's odd behavior was due to losing Pansy to the Gryffindors – when it was rather obvious that he was just jealous of Pansy spending time with the love of his life. And Pansy understood that, but the other students wouldn't.

And it seemed ever since Pansy had chosen to be an unofficial Gryffindor– or more accurately, an unofficial member of the Golden Trio, the whole school had just lost it. Millicent, for example, had gone from submissive underling to an unbearable gossipy stalking witch (no pun intended, of course). She trailed Draco, followed him everywhere, shadowed him, spied, lied, she did whatever she could to get his approval and attention – and it had only been twenty-four hours since Pansy had "relinquished" her position at the time Millicent began moving in! And everyone else it seemed was just as bad, only in different ways.

It seemed like the Houses were slowly dissolving, bit-by-bit. More and more people were socializing outside of their Houses, and believe it or not, _Slytherin _was the worst! Slytherins of all ages now openly socialized with Gryffindors. Why, Blaise Zabini had even asked Ginny Weasley out on a date for the first Hogsmeade weekend (which was over a month away at the time), and she had actually accepted. Ronald was eyeing Daphne Greengrass like a man in desert, and she was the oasis. It was quite revolting, actually. And now, The-Boy-Who-Lived was being especially… _attentive_ to Pansy. _Poor sod! Doesn't have a chance!_

But Pansy rather liked being friends with all of them. She and Hermione were quite inseparable. They were always talking of school and such. Pansy imagined that it must be a relief to havean actual conversation that didn't involve Quidditch (_Harry_), food (_Ron_), or who the hottest boy in school was (_any of the female population at Hogwart's_).

Harry and Ron were definitely beginning to grow on her as well. Although not always sweet and considerate, they were the closest things she had to brothers. As irritated as she was, Pansy had to admit that her life was beginning to come together. She still thought about what her life would have been like had she been born in what she considered her "rightful era;" like now, as she reorganized the potions cupboard.

It had been one of those days. Snapehad been especially sharp with everyone – no doubt because of Pansy's "little stunt," as he'd called it. After the Welcoming Feast, he had confronted her, threatening to "make her life utter Hell if she ever dared to pull a stunt like that again." Pansy could still feel his vice-like grip on her arm. Yet she had refused to give in. She had sat next to Hermione at dinner every day since the Welcoming Feast, and Snape had more than kept his word. He couldn't openly target her for sitting at the Gryffindor table as Dumbledore seemed to havespoken with the teachers, and given his hearty approval of her actions, so instead he used the privilege of his authority to slap her with more detentions than the whole school combined had ever served. He used the time he had her trapped in his classroom to slowly drive her into the depths of insanity – and he was doing a damn good job of it too. If Pansy had to reorganize that sodding Potions' cupboard _one more time…_Well, let's just say that it would be wise for Snape to rethink any future plans he had involving contributing to the population of the Wizarding community.

Pansy glanced over at Snape. He sat at his desk grading papers as usual, only ever glancing up to criticize Pansy's work. "Could you at least _attempt_ to not move like an _iceberg_, Miss Parkinson? I do not wish to remain in this classroom until the end of the school _semester_," he would hiss at her. O_h_! How she wanted to show him _exactly_ what she would do with an iceberg if she had one! He'd never walk straight again by the time she was through with him.

Suddenly the phial in her hand shattered, spilling its contents onto the floor. In her anger, she had squeezed the phial too tightly, leaving shards of glass in her hand. Pansy stood there in a sort of awe as she watched the pearlescent liquid mix with crimson on her hand. She had never in all her years of study come across a potion that looked anything like this. The color of the potion seemed to change when mixed with her blood. It turned from a pearlescent white to a glowing gold. It seemed to absolutely radiate something she couldn't quite put her finger on. Almost like déjà vu, but… _more_. It radiated familiarity as well, but there was also something else, something she had never completely touched on before. Like the fairy tales she used to read to Ella before she went to sleep. _Happily ever after_, it seemed to say in all its golden glory.

Before Pansy could think any more on it though, Snape was beside her, demanding why she hadn't been answering him. In truth, she hadn't heard a word he'd said. It was then that he saw what the commotion had been. He looked at her hand wide-eyed for a moment before launching his attack.

"Were you born a disgraceful klutz, or did you acquire your lack of coordination as you gained years?" Snape hissed, roughly grabbing the wrist of the injured hand. Conjuring a handkerchief, he wrapped Pansy's hand in it, and headed for the door. He seemed intent on dragging her through the halls to Madame Pomfry's infirmary, shouting from the tops of his lungs what an absolute idiot she was. Pansy gritted her teeth and stood her ground, sharply yanking her wrist out of his hand. There was no way in Hell that Pansy was going to add this humiliation to everything else Snape had put on her plate of injust sufferings. She'd had enough.

Snape seemed momentarily confused by her fierce retrieval of her injured hand, but the moment was gone as quickly as it had come, leaving his usual sneer in place instead.

"What is it that you think you are doing, Miss Parkinson?" The dangerous tone of his voice told her that she'd better consider her answer carefully.

"I could ask you the same thing," she replied smartly, ignoring his unspoken warning. Snape's eyes narrowed.

"I am taking you to the infirmary to see Madame Pomfry, of course. And another detention for your… _cheek_." His tone would have made any other student in the school quake, even The-Boy-Who-Lived. But Pansy wasn't any student – and she was _tired_ of being stepped on.

"I won't serve it," she said defiantly. "I'm not serving any more detentions from you. You know I haven't earned any of the one you've given me, and I am _sick_ of you bullying me. I'm not your punching bag!" she nearly shouted at him. Snape's eyes were wide, but he seemed to have no ready reply, so she continued.

"And it's not just me, either. You do it to everyone, especially poor Longbottom. It's hardly a wonder that your class has the lowest passing rate in the entire school! And don't ask how I know that, because _everyone_ knows that! It's _disgusting_, the way you act. You are _paid_ to _teach_ us, not _bully_ us! You're a grown man for Merlin's sake! Now start _acting_like it!" By now Pansy was out of breath, and swaying dizzily. Snape gently tried to support her but she roughly shook him off, and leaned against a student's desk instead.

"Don't touch me," she whispered faintly. "I don't like to be touched." Pansy's head spun. _What's wrong with me?_ Pansy thought desperately. _I didn't lose a lot of blood. I shouldn't feel so… so dizzy. And why- _why_ won't the damn room stop spinning!?_ Pansy raised her hand to her head, trying to calm the throbbing sensation that had started to pound like a hammer against the inside of her temple. She realized right as she touched her head from the pain that her left hand still had glass sticking out of it. She looked at it again, this time through hazy eyes. _The potion! It must be the potion that's making me feel this way!_

"Pr- Professor Snape?" Pansy called weakly, still looking at her hand. When no answer came, she looked up. He was over at the other end of the room, with his head in the fireplace talking to someone. Pansy couldn't concentrate enough to get the full conversation, but she did get that he was talking to Dumbledore by the way Snape addressed the person on the other side of the floo connection, as "sir." She managed to get the words, "experimental," "unknown side effects," and "My reasons are entirely personal, sir," from what was being said.

Inhaling deeply and bracing herself, Pansy called louder.

"_Snape!_" she shouted, startling Snape. He jumped slightly, hitting his head on the underside of the mantelpiece. He let loose a string of curses, earning a disapproving, "_Severus!_" from the fireplace. Snape gave the fireplace a _very_ dirty look before turning his attention back to Pansy.

Pansy held herself up heavily with her left hand, while cradling the injured right one to her stomach. She rolled her heavily lidded eyes over to Snape's blurring form.

"Wha… What potion was that?" Snape seemed to hesitate before answering.

"It was an experimental potion that I was working on. I doubt if you have any need to worry. It was a time-based potion and should have no lasting side effects," he answered coolly, but Pansy, with her innate understanding of others, knew that he was unsure – maybe even nervous. Most students would have been shocked to pieces at seeing their Potions Master nervous. Most students would have left him alone, maybe seen a therapist to help with the shock of it all. But not Pansy. Pansy saw everyone as equal – which meant that everyone was equally entitled to equal proportions of her wrath – teacher or not.

"Experimental? Experi_mental!?_ The only thing _'mental'_ around here is _you!_" she said, her anger giving her focus enough to speak clearly. "Are you _insane_!? Keeping volatile, experimental potions with unknown side effects in a cupboard that nearly _every student_ in the school has _access_ to!!?? _Aargh!_ Even _I_ would make a better teacher than you, and I haven't even taken my O.W.L.s yet! Pansy's weakness returned full force, forcing her to slide to the floor before she fell. Pansy's hand began to ache unbearably, and even more disturbingly… _tingled_. Like a leg gone numb from sitting too long, only more… _pleasant?_

Pansy looked down to examine it more closely. Her eyes widened in horror. The veins of her entire right forearm, from fingertips to elbow, was now glowing the same golden color as the potion when mixed with her blood – and it was spreading quickly. Every second, it seemed to gain speed in its takeover of her bloodstream, and soon her entire arm felt that aching tingle.

Panicked, she looked up only to realize that people were coming out of the fireplace left and right. Dumbledore, Pomfry, McGonagall, and other teachers. Madame Pomfry was the first to speak. The others were far too shocked at seeing Pansy in such a state.

"Severus, couldn't you make the poor thing a bit more comfortable?" she said in gentle reproach. Snape, snapping out of his shock at hearing his name, somehow found the words to answer her.

"As you can well imagine by merely looking at Miss Parkinson, I had more pressing concerns than her level of comfort, Poppy." _Even in a crisis, the man's a sarcastic git._

"Um… Sorry to bother you all, but I have a _glowing_ _arm_ over here – and the glow happens to be _spreading_." Everyone in the room turned to Pansy, but Dumbledore was the first to take action. _Go figure_, Pansy thought sarcastically. He walked toward her with a kind smile but before he could do or say anything, the glow had finished its course through her veins, lighting up the entire room. Pansy glowed from head to foot – even the veins in her eyes glowed gold, her irises completely taken over by it. The brave staff started backing up against the fireplace. Pansy rolled her eyes. It seemed that her strength was returning to her, so with great difficulty, she picked herself up off the floor.

"_Where would you be…?"_ a voice whispered. Pansy looked up at her teachers in confusion.

"_If you could be anywhere…"_ Pansy spun around towards the door looking in the direction she heard the voice sound. No one was there.

"_In all the world…"_

"_At any time…"_

"_In all of history…"_

Pansy turned in every direction, frantic and confused. _Who's talking to me? Why am I hearing this voice?_

"_Where would you be?"_ the voice whispered right in her left ear. She could feel its breath moving her hair. Instead of turning around, Pansy froze. Weren't these the same questions she had asked herself only a few weeks ago, and continued to think of every day since? Without knowing why, she began to answer them again, but this time, aloud.

"Paris, France. 1950's."

"_If you could be any age, child..?"_

"_What would it be?"_ Pansy thought about this for a long moment. She wanted to be older. She certainly _felt_ older than she was. She'd lived through more than most people do in their entire lifetimes. But at the same time she didn't want to cut her life much shorter. She promised herself that she'd live her life to the fullest for her sister, because Ella couldn't. _Seventeen. Two years older isn't too much, but it's still the legal Wizarding age._ _Seventeen it is._

"_How old would you be?"_ the voice whispered again.

"Seventeen," Pansy said decidedly. "Seventeen years-old."

Pansy was distantly aware of people talking to her. She could feel herself being shaken, but somehow nothing actually reached her conscious thought except the sound of the voice.

"_Are you sure?"_ Moments in Pansy's life took a strangle-hold of her mind. Every bitter memory, every tear she had ever shed before she promised Ella she wouldn't cry, every beating, every scar she couldn't heal with magic, every night Pansy spent telling her sister stories and lies to distract her from painful hunger, every lie she was ever told, every time she just wanted the earth to swallow her up, every time she just wanted to end the pain, every time she just wanted to cry… It all flooded her mind in one single moment. And in that moment, she knew with absolute certainty what her answer would be.

"Oh, _yes."_ They were only two words… but in those words were every emotion she ever felt in those times of despair. And then it happened.

The glowing in her veins seemed to explode through her skin, yet she felt no pain. The light was so bright. Like the sun, but so much more intense.

The others in the room had to stop trying to bring Pansy out of whatever state she was in, and shield their eyes from the light. They could see nothing; feel nothing; do nothing. They couldn't even watch.

For Pansy it was an altogether different sensation than the painful blinding her teachers were enduring. Like strong arms cradling you as they carried you away to a better place. But she felt something else too. Later, Pansy would compare it to the way a VHS cassette feels when being rewound; like her whole life was flashing before her eyes, only in reverse.

And then she began to fall. Thousands and thousands of feet she must have fallen down. She could see a darkness somewhere at the bottom, but it seemed forever out of reach. Farther and farther she fell; and as she fell, she began to see things. Planes crashing into two identical skyscrapers; teenagers with picket signs in front of Oxford, declaring that U.S. troops had no business in Vietnam; a gathering of people in colorful tie-dye clothes, laying on couches or the floor, completely wasted; a man sitting in a car with his wife in a long procession of cars, and that same man being shot, the blood spattering all over his wife's dress; masses of people waiting in line to see the premiere of a movie called _West Side Story_…

Then without warning, she entered the darkness. She couldn't see anything for a while. Terrified, she groped through the darkness, looking for something to hold onto – and all the while, she fell. And then the images started again, but they were different. All of one person. He started as a boy of eight. He was in a house of some sort and a little girl of about four was in an old fashioned tub. A woman Pansy assumed was the children's mother handed a sponge to the boy, and said a few words to him. Pansy couldn't hear even a syllable of any other word than, "Hannibal." Every time the name was said, it echoed through Pansy's mind: _Hannibal… Hannibal…_

The one thing that struck Pansy about this little boy was the way he played with the little girl (his sister, she supposed). Almost reverently, like his sole purpose in life was her; her entertainment, her health, her safety. It was like watching a moment from her own past. How many baths had Pansy given Arella? Hundreds? Thousands? Tears crept into Pansy's eyes, but she forced them back. She _would not cry_.

The image faded and a new one appeared. The boy stood outside a cabin surrounded by trees. Explosions and gunfire rained down, and the woman from the previous image was shot down, along with a man that shared a striking resemblance to the boy. Horror filled the child's eyes as he screamed for his parents. The little girl walked up behind him and then ran into the field of open fire. "Mischa, _no!_" he shouted, running after her and pulling her into the cabin. It seemed the only time she could hear any other word than "Hannibal," was when the boy said a sentence with "Mischa," in it.

The image speeded up a little and slowed once again. It was either dusk or dawn, Pansy could not tell. The bodies of the boy's parents lay in the field, now so distorted that they had become unrecognizable as anything more than human remains. Wolves lurked from the woods into the clearing, intent on the cold corpses, blood frozen to their bodies by the cruel wind. The wolves growled loudly. Suddenly the boy came out shouting, picking up rocks and throwing them at the bloodthirsty animals.

The scene fast forwarded again. But this time Pansy only caught glimpses of things. Uniformed men standing inside the cabin; the boy standing in front of his sister in a defensive position, waving a log at the men threateningly; one of the men pinching the flesh of the children's cheeks, arms, and legs, almost as if seeing how much meat was on their bones; that same man examining the girl and shaking his head in a way that said, "She isn't going to make it;" one of the men leading the girl outside into the snow by the hand, while holding an axe with the other; the boy being restrained as he flailed and screamed his sister's name: "_Mischa!_ _Mischaaa!!!;"_ a pot of stew on the fireplace; the boy being force-fed the stew; the boy walking alone in the clearing, snow falling all around him, as people shouted in the distance; an orphanage; bullies; cruelty; the boy, about seventeen years old, using a fork to defend himself from another boy, who was about to hit him; the boy smiling cynically as the other boy cried out in pain; the boy sitting in an office in the same building, waiting; the boy jumping over a wall on the grounds of the orphanage with a brown potato sack slung over his shoulder; the boy standing outside the kitchen of a mansion in the dark; the boy sitting in a room, drinking tea with a Japanese woman; the boy learning how to fight; the boy standing in a dark room in front of a shrine of some sort; the boy polishing a samurai sword reverently; the boy having an altercation with a fat butcher; the boy killing the fat butcher in the woods by a river; police; a detective; jail; freedom; medical school; exams…

The images continued flowing, but the speed of her descent decreased more and more as the seconds flew by, and then she suddenly began to approach a dull light. As she continued to fall she realized that it was a dimly lit room. She saw a desk, a dresser, and a bed; and on that bed the boy was laying; only he was a man now. He was sketching from what she could tell.

As she approached, the voice that had questioned her earlier began chanting. "_Hannibal…"_ it whispered, growing louder every time. _"Hannibal…"_ Louder and louder. "_Hannibal… Hannibal..! Hannibal.!! Hannibal!!!"_ And then it stopped.

Pansy was really looking at The-Boy-Turned-Man now. Dark brown hair, just a shade lighter than her own. Well built. Strong arms, long legs. His head was facing downward, but for the most part she knew what she would have seen: a pleasant face with a Grecian nose, and a set of haunted brown eyes staring back at her; high cheekbones, and a cynical smile. Altogether it had a rather devastating effect.

Pansy's last thought was, _Good Merlin, he's hot!_

Then she fell on top of him.

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**A/N: Comments? Criticism? **


	7. I've Got A Weapon And I Know How To

_**Don't Cry For Pain**_

_**Chapter 7: "I've Got A Weapon And I Know How To Use It!**__**" **_

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**A/N: Yaaaaaay!!! I got another chapter up!!! Please forgive me for taking so long about it. Things have been crazy…  
I want to dedicate it to my reviewers: Loopycathair and Alex, (you won't see a review from Loopycathair because she sent a private message, but I still count it).  
Thank you guys with sticking with me. I really hope you like it. **

_**~ Jane **_

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_Pansy's last thought was, Good Merlin, he's hot! _

_Then she fell on top of him. _

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Hannibal Lector lay reclining on his bed as he usually did on Saturday late in the evening. He found that he had trouble sleeping until about two or three in the morning – and with the nightmares he had, no one could blame him. It so happened that on this particular night he was once again sketching the face of his beloved sister Mischa. _Oh, what he wouldn't give for one more moment with her!_ _To tell her how much he loved her just one last time…_

But alas, it was not to be. The time for love was long past and now the time for revenge had come. After having killed that butcher by the river he knew that he was ready. He had trained hard and now he would avenge his sister, his Mischa – and no one, not even Lady Murisaki whom he loved more than any living being on earth, would stop him.

This was the train Hannibal's thoughts were taking when he felt a breeze coming from above. He set aside his charcoal pencil and sketch pad on the small bedside table. He looked up just in time to see the face of a frightened adolescent girl with dark hair fall through a vortex in his ceiling.

Then she fell on top of him.

The force knocked both of them right off the bed. It hurt considerably, not to mention his absolute shock at seeing a girl fall through his ceiling. He hadn't been so shaken since… _No,_ he would not think of that. He had other things to concern himself with at the moment, like figuring out who the girl underneath him was. He had landed on top of her, making an interrogation significantly easier on him, and considerably more uncomfortable for her. He had her arms pinned on either side of her head. She said nothing, merely stared at him in what was obvious and reasonable shock.

Hannibal was struck by her strange looks and queer style of clothing. She seemed to be wearing some form of dress-like robe with a crest on it. The crest was a silver snake surrounded by green wisps of smoke. But it was her eyes that really captured his attention. Dark chocolate with flecks of gold and hazel, and every bit as haunted as his own. As he tried to look closer into her soul, see what secrets she was hiding, but what he found an invisible barrier that kept him from reading anything from the queer girl. But behind that wall, he could tell, there was a sea of dark secrets and long buried emotions she would allow no one to see. Like him, she had shut out the world.

When Hannibal finally did open his lips to speak, it seemed to bring the girl out of the trancelike state she had been in. She jerked her knee into his groin with considerable force, making him lose grip of her right wrist. She didn't waste the opportunity. She hit him with a right cross that belied her small stature.

Without hesitation the girl rolled an immobile Hannibal off of her, getting to her feet with almost unnatural speed. Hannibal lay on his side with his hands in between his legs, praying to whatever 'powers that be' that the agony would cease.

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Pansy was uncomfortable. _Very_ uncomfortable. The man-boy, _Hannibal_, had been searching her eyes for a few seconds too long and she was beginning to get a bit irritable. Of course, one might wonder why it was that she hadn't asked him to move or just shoved him off already. She would deny this later with a fierceness that most would find absolutely terrifying, but it was because of how utterly beautiful he was. One could still recognize him from the boy he had been, but he was so much more now. His beauty was not what she had been expecting. A round, boyish face with vulnerability etched into every line, yes; but this man with his strong jaw, noble brow, and forced cynicism shielding the pain in his dark eyes… How could she have known he would speak to her very soul? Was it just that she had seen so much of his suffering that she felt this connection to him? Or was it more?

Pansy did not know, but one thing was certain: she didn't want to stay and find out. She had seen what he was capable of and wanted no part of it – so she kneed him in the groin. And when he released her hand in pain, she gave him a right cross that he would not soon forget. She shoved him off her in haste and rose quickly, not giving him so much as a moment to recover. Looking around frantically, Pansy grabbed the first thing she saw to use in her defense: a lamp, which still happened to be on.

Hannibal looked up at her through watery eyes as he slowly got up.

"Don't come near me! I've got a weapon and I _know_ how to use it!" Pansy shouted wildly at him, shaking the lamp a bit to prove her point. Hannibal raised an eyebrow at her from the floor, but Pansy shook the lamp at him again just to make sure he knew she wasn't kidding.

Moving gracefully, Hannibal stood to his full height.

"What exactly do you plan to do with _that_, may I ask?" his voice holding the slightest lilt of an accent as he tilted his head, indicating the lamp. Pansy held it over her left shoulder like a baseball bat.

"_Bludgeon_ you to death if I have to. Just _try_ and touch me again," she said warningly. But Hannibal wasn't looking at her face or the lamp – he was looking at her right hand which now had glowing blood streaming down it, forming a glowing puddle on the floor. She had forgotten completely about the injury she had acquired in the potions classroom, but now as she remembered it she realized just how much it pained her.

Pansy looked at Hannibal again, who was now watching her face. She realized that he somehow had gotten nearly a foot closer to her while she had been studying her injury. Pansy now swayed on her feet unsteadily as she had done in the classroom, for she had now lost quite a bit of blood, not to mention what that potion might still have been doing to her. She _had_ to get the potion cleaned out of it, and probably needed a few stitches to boot. But it wasn't as though she could simply put the lamp down and ask him to patch her up – at least not after what she had done to him. She imagined that he was still hurting from that kneeing she gave him. She then remembered what Hannibal did to the butcher, and the butcher had only insulted a friend of his – imagine what he would do to someone that had actually kneed him in the groin and punched him in the face!

It seemed that Hannibal had had the same idea about fixing her hand though. He took another step forward, and Pansy shook the lamp a little. Hannibal put his hands up in a, 'I mean no harm' gesture.

"I could fix that for you," he said, tilting his head toward her injured hand. "I'm a doctor."

'Ha! _Liar_. You're only a medical _student_. You haven't even gotten your doctor's license yet!" Pansy said scornfully, waving the lamp a bit as she tried to steady herself. Hannibal gave her a strange look at her knowing that, but wisely did not pursue it.

"True," he began neutrally. "But I still have enough medical training to take care of that for you. I won't harm you. I swear it." His eyes spoke of his sincerity but there still lurked an animalistic quality in them that Pansy did not trust.

Pansy laughed maniacally.

"The promise of some psychotic killer? Oh, yeah. _That's_ going to get me to trust you!" She laughed again but it faded quickly as her vision began to swim before her eyes. Her laugh had died completely as the lamp fell from her hands. Hannibal rushed forward to catch her before she too could fall to the ground.

The last thing Pansy Parkinson saw were two brown orbs filled with a haunted, but genuine concern.

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**A/N: Yay! It's not really short! Love me! Come on, you know you want too… :D  
I feel soooo much better that I have another chapter up. Please review. It's the only reason I keep posting (albeit sporadically). **

**P.S.  
If there are any mistakes, please feel free to tell me. I'm doing all this by memory. Thanks. **

_**~ Jane**_


	8. Dressing For Success

_**Don't Cry For Pain **_

_**Chapter 8: "Dressing For Success." **_**

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**

A/N: Am I getting Hannibal okay? I wasn't really sure. I'm having trouble with his outfits too. And Pansy's. If anyone could help me out with that, I would be forever grateful. Also, I changed the layout of his room. His doorway is now across from the wall with all the sketches pinned to it, next to his bed. It suited the story better, but I'll try not to change things too much to keep confusion down to a minimum.  
I love you all, my readers, but special love must go to my reviewers: Elphabathedelirious32, Sunfire004, and Hollymonster.

_**~ Jane McB. **_

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_~*PP*~_

Pansy groaned in pain as she lay in bed, covers tucked uncomfortably tight under her chin. She felt like she'd been run over by a bus. _What did Snape do to me in that detention? Use a Cruciatis?_

Pansy froze. _Detention... Dropping a potion phial... Glowing blood… Snape… Dumbledore… Falling... Mischa… Hannibal... Beautiful... Haunted... Right cross... Lamp... Dizziness... Falling... Haunted brown eyes... Hannibal…_

_Hannibal…_

Memories flooded Pansy's mind. Her eyes snapped open. She was greeted by the same ceiling she'd fallen through the night before, minus the gaping vortex of doom thingy. It was obviously late morning or early afternoon by the bright light shining through the little window in the little room. The room was rather small, even for one person to live in, but comfortably furnished. Other than Pansy it seemed to be unoccupied.

Pansy shoved the heavy blanket off of her, feeling as though she'd just sweated out a bad fever. If her sweat covered body, the dizziness and pounding in her head, and the clamminess of her skin were any indication, she _had_ had a fever. A bad one by the feel of it.

Pansy saw her robes hung over a chair. Hannibal must have taken them off when she took ill, leaving her in the muggle clothes she'd taken to wearing after her parents' very timely murder. She was wearing a black tank top and a pair of loose, but not baggy, black denim jeans.

Pansy rose from the bed, her hand on the bedside table being the only thing preventing her from falling. Once the room stopped spinning a little, Pansy took in her surroundings better.

A single Japanese painting hung over the bed while the rest of the walls were covered in pinned-up sketches. Next to the bedside table, there was what looked to be a small Japanese shrine with a picture of the little girl Mischa in the center. Pansy winced. _He must have loved her very much._

Pansy shook herself from her thoughts. She would not make _his_ actions excusable by grief. Pansy had grieved for years over her own sister, but had never used her own pain as an excuse to inflict pain on others, regardless of circumstances. Her parents didn't get nearly what they deserved, but she knew that it wasn't her place to judge, condemn, and execute their punishment, no matter how badly she wanted to.

Pansy's eyes drifted toward a particular set of sketches pinned on a wall adjacent the window's left side – five to be exact. Pansy shakily made her way to where they were pinned up, leaning against the desk near the window for support, which was also covered by sketches. She looked out of the window for a moment to find that the surrounding buildings were in fact dormitories. It was very likely that Pansy occupied Hannibal's room at the hospital that provided him with a work scholarship. _If they only knew who was working for them…_

Pansy turned her attention back to the sketches. They were of five different men, each sketch pinned side by side. Pansy's eyes widened in recognition. They were the same men that had killed Hannibal's sister Mischa, only… not. Their faces were distorted into frightening monsters, barely recognizable from what they looked like in reality, though Pansy thought that the sketches were truer to the men's natures than nature itself had been.

Pansy shuddered and looked away, unwilling and unable to revisit the repulsive memories of those men. Instead she turned her attention to what appeared to be Hannibal's sketchbook, which was laid haphazardly on his small desk. Pansy's curiosity got the better of her and despite her misgivings she opened the sketchbook, fully expecting to find sketches similar to the ones on the wall. To her surprise, she found a sketch of herself on a small pile of loose sketches. In the sketch, she was wielding a lamp with what she had hoped at the time to be a menacing look. Hair an absolute wreck, robes askew, and blood trailing down her arm, she looked much more pathetic than menacing. But at the same time, the artist seemed to capture a strange beauty in her that she was certain she didn't possess. Pansy noted that her eyes seemed to sparkle, and though her hair was an absolute wreck, it seemed to have a strange shine to it, probably because of the lamp. The artist was brilliant. His other sketches hadn't shown even half his talent.

Having stared at her sketched self long enough, she lifted and set aside the page… to find yet another sketch of herself, only this time sleeping on Hannibal's bed restlessly with perspiration beading on her forehead. Pansy looked like a beautifully tragic heroin. _Only Hannibal's hands could make even my sweat look romantic._ Pansy gave a wry smile at the thought but it quickly faded. She then decided that it was best if she didn't use his first name. It was just too personal. Pansy took a closer look at the sketch, looking for his signature. She found it and was rather surprised by the delicate cursive spelling out 'Hannibal Lector.' _Lector it is then._

Pansy heard the scraping of a key against the door and spun around quickly, nearly falling down from dizziness in the process. Someone was coming in. Pansy frantically looked around for a weapon but it was too late. The door handle had turned.

_~*HL*~_

Hannibal Lector put another croissant into his basket with only mild irritation when one considered his situation. It was a Saturday, and the finest to be had in a long while. Not cold, just a slightly cool breeze lifting leaves off the ground and twirling them around in a sort of miniature tornado. He had planned on visiting Lady Murisaki today, but it seemed that God, or fate, or whatever it was that decided his lot in life had other plans – like dropping a strange, but lovely adolescent girl through his ceiling, on top of him, and into his life for heaven knew how long.

Hannibal picked up an apple and absentmindedly rubbed his thumb across its surface, staring but not at anything in particular. He had been rather shocked at first. Even he would admit that – after all, a girl _had_ just fallen through his ceiling. Hannibal ran what little he knew of the strange girl through his mind. She was young – no more than fifteen or sixteen. Her hair was very short for the times, reaching her chin and rising to the back of her neck in an A-line, but the style was not unbecoming with her face shape. She was very tall for a female of any age. She was at least five-foot-nine which was very close to his five-foot-ten and three quarters. She still wasn't as tall as Lady Murisaki, who reached five-foot-eleven and one half inch, but then few women were quite that tall.

Her clothes were strange to him. He had had to remove her outer robe when she had taken fever, revealing her to be wearing what he believed were a pair of men's trousers, though he'd never seen the like of them before, and what appeared to be a rather feminine version of a man's undershirt, small enough to leave little of her curvature to the imagination. _Couldn't the poor creature afford to dress herself properly?_ Though her clothes didn't seem the right size for her they didn't appear to be ragged or dirty, so that made her being a runaway or a homeless person rather unlikely. She hadn't been wearing enough cosmetics to be a prostitute either. He would have to think about her origins a little later. He still had to pick up a few things to treat the cut on her hand. That was another thing that he couldn't explain. The blood leaking out of her arm and how the skin around the wound had glowed a pearlescent gold. He had no idea what she'd gotten in the wound to make it do that, so he'd taken a sample. Once he'd cleaned the wound, the glow had seemed to lessen, but the girl's fever worsened significantly. He'd stayed up all night helping her to break the fever using what little he had available to him. Eventually when the fever had come to a crisis and he'd thought she was going to die, he'd run as fast as he could to the medical wing and broken into the medical supply, taking what he thought might help, even if only a little. He would've given her a sedative but he couldn't risk it reacting badly to whatever had made her blood glow.

The girl seemed so frightened and small. It gave Hannibal the most powerful urge to protect her, to fend off the demons of her nightmares. He remembered one particular moment, just before her fever broke when he had been wiping her perspiration away with a cool, wet cloth. She had seemed particularly disturbed by some shadow creeping across her mind, tormenting her in the worst ways. The things she cried out in those moments of terror were things Hannibal Lector would never forget, even if he lived for a thousand years.

"Daddy, _please!_ I promise I'll be good, only don't do _that! Please!_" she'd shrieked in terror, fighting off invisible hands, and likely other things, from in between her legs. She pushed, kicked, screamed, _begged_ until her voice was hoarse. Her desperate cries had gone into torturous detail, details he wanted nothing more than to forget. Hannibal wanted to vomit. Her cries and protests left little of what her animal of a father had done to her to the imagination. But her most desperate cries were for someone named Ellie. The girl pleaded and begged and bargained that she'd do anything her father wanted if he only wouldn't hurt Ellie. It was like the day Mischa died, only he watched and listened to the horrors through the girl's voice and tortured expression.

If the students hadn't gone home for the coming holidays, there would have been nothing he could do for her or for himself. There was no way he could have explained her presence in his room that late at night or saved her from a mental asylum once she awoke. No doctor in his right mind would let someone who'd said and been though the things she had go anywhere but a mental ward. That was the way 'modern' doctors handled patients they didn't know what to do with. They locked them away, never to be heard from again. He was grateful that he'd decided to stay for a few more days before leaving to spend his holidays with Lady Murisaki. If he hadn't been there, the girl probably would've died, if not from loss of blood then surely from the strain of the fever and the visions that tormented her.

It was when her cries were reaching a crescendo that he began to whisper nonsense words of comfort to her. Tears were falling from his eyes as he did, though it was hours later before he realized it. Everything in him felt sickened at what she'd endured and the tears for her seemed to be an unconscious reaction to the shock of it. Hannibal rarely ever cried, especially not in the presence of another, unconscious of him though the girl may have been. Not once though, through the whole terrible experience did the girl shed a single tear. It was an obvious struggle, but she didn't cry, even though she'd been asleep and in the fierce clutches of a fever. He'd never seen someone so in control before. No matter how long and hard he'd struggled, he'd never been so in control. He respected her for it. He didn't even know her name, but sure as hell, he respected her. Now all he had to do was figure out why and how she fell through his ceiling.

He put several more apples in the basket, shuffling his other packages with more grace than most others would have. He paid the merchant for his purchases and made his way back to the hospital, hoping that he'd have a little time before the girl woke. He had carelessly left his sketches on his desk. It was an oversight on his part that he never would have made if he'd had a decent night's sleep. After her fever broke, he'd had no difficulty remaining awake. His thoughts had plagued him. Memories of that terrible day when his world, small though it had been, had fallen apart. And he couldn't stop watching her. Restlessly tossing on the bed, trying to find peaceful rest. It got to the point that he was forced to find a distraction from her restless struggle, something he had tried, but failed to ease. His soothing words had stopped her more desperate cries, but there was still a restlessness within her that he could not calm. So he had taken up his sketch book, merely drawing lines at first, not knowing or caring what he drew. He had expected something like his other drawings to appear on the paper, but was rather shocked to find that the girl's angered face had appeared. The light had cascaded over her, making her dark hair shine with an unearthly glow. He had tried to convince himself at the time that he had added to her strange beauty but when he looked at her restless form struggling underneath the heavy blankets, her hair falling into her eyes just right, he knew that she was more beautiful than any picture he could have sketched.

After that he had given up trying to distract himself from her and gave into his fascination. He spent the night and early morning sketching her in various forms and situations, from when she'd been falling through his ceiling to when she'd sweated out her fever. He even drew a few of her in the gardens of Lady Murisaki's estate, one side of her hair pinned back with a white flower. She was even more beautiful in that sketch than she had been in the others. It made him want to protect her all the more.

This was what Hannibal Lector was thinking of when he unlocked the door to his dormitory and opened it, revealing the strange girl holding his sketches and looking up at him like a deer caught in his headlights in her too-tight clothing.

_~*PP*~_

Pansy's heart raced as the door opened. She had no way of protecting herself from the intruder. Pansy hated herself a little for feeling relieved that it was just Han– _Lector_, and not someone else. She had to remember that he was a killer, and be on her guard at all times.

Lector looked at her a moment before realizing that she held his sketchbook in her hand. She'd forgotten completely about having it in her hand when she heard him at the door. He looked none too pleased about her having it. His eyes seemed to grow a little darker, a little colder. The change was slight but it was enough to send a creeping chill right down Pansy's spine.

Lector walked into the room, set his groceries (which Pansy had just noticed) on the floor next to the bed, and turned, shutting and locking the door gracefully. Pansy began to tremble a little at his last action. _What is he going to do to me?_ She hated that she was afraid. She'd been through more in her short fifteen years than most people went through in a lifetime. But her fear sprang from knowing out of her own personal experience that there were worse things he could do to her than kill her.

Pansy's eyes went to her robe. Her wand was in it but she knew she would never reach it in time to save herself.

Lector turned around and stalked over to her, gently but firmly removing the sketches from her hands and placing them neatly into the sketchbook. He paused when he noticed which one she'd been looking at and if Pansy didn't know better, she would have sworn that he'd blushed. It was the sketch of her in a garden looking directly through the sketch at the observer rather than focusing on an object in the drawing.

"You should not be out of bed. You are not yet well," Lector said evenly, his back still turned. He then walked over to his basket and other parcels. Pansy's hope raised a little. _Maybe he won't mention me falling through his ceiling. Maybe he'll just pretend it never happened._

He looked incredible, Pansy decided. Murderer or not, he was the most beautiful man she had ever laid eyes on. His dark hair was much wilder than the night before.

"I bought some food. I don't know how much you will be able to eat after the night you endured, but it would be best if you got something on your stomach. You will need your strength for the discussion we are going to have," he said meaningfully. Lector gave the entire speech without looking at her once. _So much for hoping he'd pretend it never happened._

He silently handed her a medium sized package. Pansy looked at it a moment before hesitantly taking it. She untied the string holding it together while Lector began removing the groceries from the basket they were in. Pansy opened it and nearly fell over at what was inside. She lifted the beautiful dress out of the package, allowing the paper that it had been wrapped in to fall idly on the ground. She held it out in front of her, admiring the soft material and feminine cut of the dress. It was a soft blue, almost purple color. The sleeves were long and the neckline dipped into almost a half-circle. It was modest, the skirt going well below the knees. It was beautiful and would be perfect for the obviously chilly fall.

Pansy felt breathless for a moment. No one had ever given her anything before. She could feel tears forming in her eyes. She blinked hard and long, forcing the tears back. When she opened her eyes, Han- _Lector_ was facing her and looking right at her. Pansy looked down at the dress in her hands, wanting to avoid his gaze. His eyes saw too much. She felt bare before him when he looked into her eyes, and as much as she hated herself for it, it wasn't a bad feeling. It was almost… _relieving_, like his knowing her terrible secrets lessened the burden of them.

"Is something wrong?" Pansy heard Lector's accented voice say. If she didn't know better she would have thought he sounded nervous. But killers didn't get nervous around plain, teenage girls who fall through their ceilings and on top of them. "I am aware that it may not be exactly…" Lector looked her up and down pointedly. "What you are _accustomed_ to wearing, but I took the liberty of taking your measurements and am having a few things made for you. This was the closest the dressmaker had to your measurements." Pansy looked at him in confusion. _A dress shop? How long does this bloke think I'm staying for?_

"Are you completely mental?!" Pansy shouted, getting Lector's full attention.

"I beg your pardon?"

"You heard me. I fell through a vortex in your bloody _ceiling_ and all you can think to do is go on a _shopping spree!?_ You must be barking mad!" Lector calmly raised a dark eyebrow to this statement.

Lector leaned against his bedside table and crossed his arms casually, all the while looking at her with that damned raised eyebrow.

"Forgive me." It was Pansy's turn to raise an eyebrow. His tone had an under lying sarcasm that put Pansy on her guard. "Perhaps you should explain the proper behavior of someone in my position, as you obviously seem to know the protocol for when a young woman falls through one's ceiling from God knows where and directly on top of them. As a matter of fact, you must have fallen through quite a few ceilings if your attitude is anything to judge by. So, if you would be so kind as to explain…" Lector cocked his head to the side sarcastically, as though he really expected her to give him the ins and outs of said 'protocol.' Pansy wanted to deck him. _Badly._ Once one got past how incredibly hot Lector was it was easy to see that he was an utter prat. It made it much easier for Pansy to distance herself from him and his haunted past.

Pansy, instead of taking the bait to comment on his incredibly stupid remark that failed quite bitterly to amuse Pansy in any way, she just rolled her brown eyes.

"I need somewhere to change into this," Pansy said, holding up the dress still in her hand. At that Lector rolled his own eyes and turned around, arms still crossed. Pansy waited a moment before realizing that he had no intention of leaving the room. Pansy was incredulous and furious at the same time, not believing his ungentlemanly behavior. For one, it wasn't like him if what she saw while in the Vortex of Time, as she referred to it, was true.

"_Hell no!_ I'm not changing with you in the room!" Hannibal turned around, putting his arms down. His eyebrow was raised… _again._ _Him and his stupid eyebrow._

"I really do wish that you would stop yelling. You're giving me a headache." He'd meant it as a barb to her but she just shot a barb right back. She didn't have time for his games.

"Well, then take an aspirin and _suck_ _it_ _up_. And while you're doing that, you can leave so I can get changed." Her tone was pure acid, but Lector's reaction was anything but what she had expected. He actually smirked at her – _smirked_, for cryin' out loud! He was amused by her and it irritated the hell out of her.

Pansy took a step forward with every intention of wiping the smirk right off his too perfect face when he turned, smirk still in place, and walked out the door, shutting it gently behind him.

Pansy curbed the desire to go after him and teach him Magic 101: How To Hex Arrogant Psychopaths, the hard way. Instead, she took the chair from the desk and wedged it under the door handle, effectively making it impossible for Lector to enter without giving her enough notice to cover herself appropriately should he decide that he didn't feel the need to play the perfect gentleman.

Pansy undressed and redressed quickly. She looked around for a mirror. There was a full length one in a corner near the door. She pulled it into the middle of the floor and looked at herself in it. The dress was perfect. It fit like it had been made for her. She didn't even need to adjust anything with her wand, which she assumed she would have to do as her size was uncommon in her time. Obviously that wasn't the case here. She looked at her reflection and hardly recognized the girl in the mirror. Normally Pansy had to wear a belt around her pants because her waist was tiny while she had large hips for a girl of her size. If her breasts were bigger she would have been a knockout. As it was, she had to settle for her bizarrely proportioned body and tiny chest. The bluish purple of the dress made her creamy skin stand out against the rich material, while Pansy's wild dark hair stood out all over. Pansy walked over to the bedside table and opened the drawer looking for a brush or comb. She found both but was surprised by the intricate and beautiful designs in the silver. Pansy smirked in satisfaction at using his personal items like she lived there. It served him right for being such a bloody prat. Pansy took out the brush and smoothed her hair down while walking back to the mirror.

Looking at the rich material, which was obviously not cheap, Pansy regretted snapping at Han- _Lector_ the way she had. He had only been trying to be kind, she realized. It was just the shock of how calm he was in the situation they were in. She was irritated that he could remain so calm when all she wanted to do was scream from the top of her lungs or curl up in the fetal position in a corner somewhere for the rest of her natural life.

"_Are you finished yet?"_ Lector's impatient voice asked from beyond the door. Pansy shot the door a dirty look before responding. Then again, maybe he _had_ deserved her attitude.

"Keep your bloody shirt on, will you? I'm almost done." Taking one last look in the mirror and deciding that that was as good as she was going to get, Pansy removed the chair from the door and opened it, revealing Lector leaning against the wall opposite the doorway. When he looked up, his expression on seeing her was one of undisguised shock.

_~*HL*~_

There was only one word to describe the young woman standing before Hannibal Lector: _Beautiful_, with a capital 'B.' She had gone from unusual and strange to feminine and delicate just by changing clothes and brushing her hair. She filled out the dress much more nicely than Hannibal had expected with only the bust being slightly loose. Her feet were bare, he realized, noting that he ought to get her some proper shoes.

Hannibal cleared his throat, looking down for a moment and then back at her when he spoke, silently hating himself for allowing a mere girl to unbalance his reactions.

"You ought to get back inside. You are not well enough to be out and about at the moment." The girl seemed shy now. Not the snappy, sharp chit she had been only a few minutes ago. He wasn't quite sure what to make of her.

**

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A/N: Okaaaay… What do you think? I'm really sorry that this took so long to write. I've had all sorts of things going on. It's really long for one of my chapters so I hope that makes up for me taking so long on it. I love you all! Please review. It makes me happy. :D

_**~ Jane McB. **_


	9. So I Kinda Fell Through Your Ceiling

_**Don't Cry For Pain **_

_**Chapter 9: "So… I Kinda Fell Through Your Ceiling."**_

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**A/N: My apologies for the long wait. Any questions? Thoughts? Opinions? Anything? Give me a review, I'll give you a shout-out. Thanks, most especially to **_**Sunfire004**_**. **

_**~ Jane**_

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The silence while Pansy and Lector ate was painful, and the tension so thick that one would need a jackhammer to plow through it. Lector stared at her the whole time while he stood leaning against the door, and he made no show of hiding his observation. Pansy, who was seated on the only chair in the room across from Lector, was anything but comfortable, and her discomfort made her… well, _cranky_.

"Take a damn picture. It'll last longer, you sodding yahoo," Pansy mumbled under her breath. Apparently not low enough though, because Lector's eyes took on a look of amusement.

Once they were finished, they both silently cleaned up, though Lector did most of it as he seemed to be back in his more gentlemanly mood. Pansy sat sullenly on the bed while she thought about how she would explain falling through a Vortex of Time into his lap, magic, and the fact that she knew about his psychotic murdering tendencies. Lector leaned against his desk as he cleaned off the knife he had used to slice their apples with, and a sudden vision of him slicing through her throat flashed across her mind.

_I think I'll leave the last part out…_

"So…" Pansy began, desperate to break the dead silence.

Lector's eyes shot up and the delicate movements of his graceful fingers stilled.

"Yes?"

Pansy's heart raced in her chest twice as fast as her mind could spit out answers.

"So… I, uhm… I fell through your ceiling," Pansy said, laughing nervously.

If the look on Lector's face was anything to tell by, he was anything but amused.

Pansy rubbed the back of her neck as her laughter began to die off.

_I am an idiot..._

"And then I, uh… fell on you?" Pansy looked up at Lector but he said nothing.

_A really BIG idiot…_

"Yes, you did," Lector finally said. "And then you struck me… _several_ times."

_I am soooo dead…_

"Yeah, sorry about that," Pansy said, rubbing the back of her neck nervously. "I was kind of freaking out?"

"'Freaking out?'" Lector raised his eyebrows questioningly.

"I was upset."

"Ah," he said, nodding his head understandingly. "I suppose that is a reasonable reaction for your situation. Perhaps I should continue to explain the sequence of events, as you were rendered incapacitated during half of them. You fainted, came down with a high fever, had nightmares so bad that it was a wonder you didn't end up going into shock, woke up, sifted through my personal property, were rude and ungrateful, yelled at me, changed into different clothes, and then we ate in awkward silence. Did I miss anything?"

Lector looked at her expectantly, something between amusement and danger in his eyes.

"Nope. That about sums it up," Pansy said, not meeting his gaze.

"It isn't what happened _after_ you fell through my ceiling that I'm interested in," Lector said, standing up straight and putting the knife down on his nightstand, then turning his gaze on her. "It's what happened _before_. If you would care to explain...?"

"It was all just a weird dream?" Pansy said hopefully.

Lector's unwavering gaze pierced her. He wasn't buying it.

"No?" Pansy sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. "You might want to sit down for this."

"I'm perfectly content standing," he said coolly.

Pansy looked up at him with a raised eyebrow and a weary look.

"Trust me. You _really_ need to sit down for this."

Lector sighed in surrender, seating himself on the chair where Pansy had taken her meal. His eyes were glued to her face, obviously trying to read every expression and emotion crossing it.

"I'm going to say this quickly. I'll give you a simple version of the explanation and elaborate afterwards so that you have time to get over the shock – like ripping off a band-aid." Lector cocked his head to the side in question.

"You don't know what a band-aid is, do you? Never mind," she said shaking her head. "Okay. Here it goes. _Magic_."

Lector's eyes narrowed dangerously.

"I don't like to be mocked," he said evenly.

"I'm serious," Pansy said just as evenly, meeting his gaze determinedly. She refused to be intimidated by him.

"I have no patience for this," Lector said irritably, rising from his seat.

"If you want my sodding explanation, you can sit down and shut up while I give it to you, you insufferable manky git! This is bloody-well hard enough as it is without you further pissing me off. Have you any idea of the week I've had? Hell, the _year_ I've had? I'm becoming a bloody nutter, for Gordon Bennett's sake!" Pansy shouted, no longer caring if he _did_ slice her throat with his stupid knife. She was tired, upset, angry, and in the company of a psychotic serial killer who also happened to be the most beautiful human being in existence. She didn't care about a whole lot anymore.

To Pansy's absolute shock, instead of being furious and chopping her into little pieces and eating her, Lector smiled – he actually _smiled_ – and then sat back down.

"Well then, by all means, continue," he said in a gentlemanly way. "Though, I think it's only fair to warn you that it is very unlikely that I'll understand anything you say if you say it like that."

"You mean the slang?" Pansy asked in confusion.

"If you can call it that," Lector said, scoffing. "But yes, the slang."

_Self-superior arse_, Pansy thought irritably.

"Fine," Pansy said tightly, a forced smile drawing her lips up twitchingly over her gritted teeth. "Where were we?"

"Magic, I believe," Lector said, his eyes and smile the only give-away to his smug amusement.

"Still don't believe me?" Pansy asked, her eyes taking on the look of a dangerous predator. She had some idea of how to take the smug out of his smile.

Lector indicated with a tilt of his head that she was correct. Pansy smiled a predator's smile, now having the young medical student precisely where she wanted him.

"Two words: _Wingardium. Leviosa_," Pansy said, her right index finger jerking upward. The chair Lector sat on jerked upward also, launching him off of it and onto his backside, while the chair continued to float above him.

"Believe me now?"


	10. Deliciously Wrong

_**Don't Cry For Pain **_

_**Chapter 10: "Deliciously Wrong."

* * *

**_

**A/N: Mwahaha! What does my title mean? Is he gonna munch somebody? You'll just have to wait and see. **

**P.S. **

**I suck at updating. Sorry. **

**~ Jane

* * *

**

_**~*HL*~**_

Hannibal had sat on the chair that the young woman had just levitated while she explained how she had gotten, not only in his room, but apparently in his time. His backside was severely bruised from her earlier show of magic – which he still had some difficulty believing existed. The more he listened to the dark-haired young lady the more unbelievable the situation became, but there it was, apparently just as she said – if he was to trust that she was telling the truth, which he wasn't entirely sure she was. She had however levitated a chair, so some of it at least had to be true.

"So if I understand your story correctly," he said, noticing the way she bristled when he called her explanation of events a 'story' and he almost couldn't fight the smirk on his face. "You are a witch from nearly half a century in the future and were sent here due to a 'potions accident,' the 'potion' being that glowing gold liquid I cleaned out of the cut on your hand. Am I correct so far?"

"Yes," she said with an impatient roll of her sparkling brown eyes.

She really was quite the spitfire…

"You also supposedly go to a school for witches and wizards called 'Hogwart's' where you learn how to practice magic and cast spells. And you actually expect me to believe all this?" he said, awaiting her reaction with interest.

"I knocked you out of a chair by using wandless levitation," she said, her head cocked to the side in challenge, her arms folded over her chest. "So, yeah, I do."

Her words were a direct challenge, one he reveled in. He hadn't ever met a woman quite like her before – girl, he reminded himself firmly; so strong, so self-assured and independent, and yet at the same so… vulnerable. She was so many things that he couldn't quite keep up. He liked the feeling. It was refreshing, exhilarating. She was sassy and sarcastic, rare traits in the women of his time. He wondered if all females were like her where she came from.

He found himself smirking constantly around her, something that obviously made her irate. He found himself enjoying that too.

"You still haven't told me your name," he said, changing the subject. "It's hardly fair as you seem to know nearly everything about me."

"Don't you think it's a bit late for 'proper introductions?'" she said, her eyebrow arched at him sarcastically.

His eyes took on a predatory gleam, and he narrowed his eyes.

"It's never too late for a proper introduction."

He watched her hesitate a moment, almost as though deciding whether it was entirely safe to share her name or not. What was she so afraid of? he wondered.

"Pansy Parkinson," she said at last, having apparently made up her mind on the matter.

She thrust her hand out at him so that they could shake hands. Smiling, he rose from his chair and gently took her hand in his, his eyes never leaving hers. He watched the nervousness in them as he lowered his lips to her hand and brushed her knuckles with them in a soft kiss. The breath caught in her throat and her eyes widened in surprise, a sweet blush caressing her cheeks.

"Hannibal Lector," he said. "It's a pleasure to meet you."

She snapped out of her almost trance-like state and yanked her hand out of his, slapping his hard.

"Don't flirt with me!" she said hysterically. "I'm from another time and county for Merlin's sake! You can't flirt with me!"

_She has a point… _

Hannibal brushed the thought away, caught off guard by her yet again.

"Not to mention the fact that I'm a very _powerful_ magical being and can kick your sorry arse any day of the week!" she said with a sharp nod of her head. She folded her arms and cocked her head to the side, eyebrow raised in silent challenge.

He looked into her eyes for a long moment, trying to peek into her soul, the way she seemed to have peeked into his. The things she did, the things she said… It was almost as if she knew him, knew how to bait him and amuse him. Looking at her like that, he couldn't muster the sarcasm he wanted when he replied.

"Could you now?" he said, his eyes moving over the details of her face. For one mind-numbing second they drifted to her lips, and he could almost feel the softness of them under his own as his mind wandered to places better left unexplored. Somewhere in the back of his mind he reasoned that he was only looking at her that way because it had been too long since he had seen Lady Murisaki, that he was lonely and that made her attractive to him.

She moved but he didn't pay any attention to what she was doing; he was too focused on the curve of her lips. Cold water hit him in the face, ripping him away from his trance-like state. In shock, he looked at Pansy again, an empty glass of water in her hands and sheer terror in her eyes.

She ran.

_**~*PP*~**_

_Oh, God,_ she thought as Lector stared hungrily at her lips. _He wants to cut my lips off, fry them in a pan and serve them with a bloody Bordeaux!_

Panicking, she grabbed a glass of water from the desk behind her and threw the contents in his face. He seemed speechless and completely taken by surprise. As though he didn't have a clue as to why she did what she did.

A cold chill crept up her spine. _Merlin… What have I done?_

Her flight of fight instinct took over, and without thought she ran past him and toward the nearest – and only – exit. He caught her around the waist before she could make her escape and pinned her against the door, pressing his body flush with hers to minimize her ability to fight him. He pushed his knees between her legs in an obvious attempt to keep her from kneeing him again. It was clever of him, but having him so close to her made her want to scream, and for the life of her she couldn't understand why. He grabbed her wrists and held them above her head firmly, but not tightly enough to cause any real pain.

"Why did you run?" he demanded roughly.

_**~*HL*~**_

"Why did you run?" he demanded roughly, the feel of her body pressed against his effecting him strangely. He'd never been so close to a woman before, not even Lady Murisaki.

She didn't answer, choosing to squirm and fight instead. He almost groaned at the unexpected sensation of her lithe body writing against him, touching him in all the right and deliciously wrong places.

He lifted her hands and slammed them into the wall in frustration, startling her into meeting his gaze with her wide, doe-like eyes. He had to get her to stop moving or he might do something truly depraved.

"_Why_ did you _run?_" he repeated, his voice hard and quiet, his eyes like burning coals.

"I- I don't… know," she said, her voice shaky.

His eyes softened when he realized that she was trembling. Why was she so afraid of him? He hadn't really hurt her – in fact, the only reason she was alive at the moment was because of him.

Her lips trembled and his gaze floated back to them. They were a little chapped but looked soft and inviting, her mouth open a little, her warm breath making little clouds of fog. Was it really so cold in there? It didn't feel cold, not with his body pressed up against hers. Unconsciously, he leaned in closer, instinctually trying to protect her body from the chill air.

That was a mistake.

The tension in her body seemed to disappear and she leaned against him in surrender. She looked too tired to fight anymore, and instead tucking her head under his chin, a sigh of what sounded like contentment escaping her lips, no doubt without her realizing it. She seemed to enjoy his touch now that she no longer felt threatened by it.

It made him feel a little lightheaded.

Leaning against him like that, going completely limp, showed how much she was really relying on him, how weak and vulnerable she really was at that moment. Now that he thought about it, she had every reason to be upset, to want to run and scream and fight. She had been thrown back in time – he reluctantly believed her about that now, as well as her magic – and into the lap of a complete stranger. She had nearly died of heaven knows what illness, and she had obviously been severely abused and lost someone very special to her. And, though he was reluctant to admit it, he hadn't made any of this easy on her. If anything, he had made it hell.

He sighed and brought one of his hands away from her wrist to stroke her short hair, her hand drifting to rest on his chest. He weaved his fingers through the strands, letting the silky hair fall through them over and over again. He massaged her neck a little, earning a quiet moan. She seemed completely unaware of everything around her and everything that she was doing, half dead from exhaustion as she was.

He was furious with himself for taking so much energy out of her. He'd behaved like a cad about this whole situation and now she was suffering for it, Pansy, who was so reliant on him now, so in need of his help.

He moved his hand away from her hair and neck, making her frown, and his other hand away from her wrist. He put his arms under her and lifted her body, once again surprised and concerned by how light she was. She weighed little more than a child.

Her eyes were closed and remained so, one hand moving to clutch the lapel of his white shirt as he carried her to the bed. He tried to lay her in it but she silently refused to let go of him. He couldn't really blame her; it was freezing now, and being the only one supposed to be there besides the guards and janitorial people, he knew the school wouldn't turn on the heating.

He stood there for a moment, uncertain if he should do what he was considering doing. She was cold now, dangerously so, and he was worried she might take a turn for the worse now that she was weakened by exhaustion. Brushing aside all doubts, Hannibal sat on the bed and laid down, her body pressed into his, her fingers still clutching tightly to him.

He hadn't taken a nap during the daytime since he was a child, and the idea of it now seemed preposterous. It was a vast waste of his time; he had too much to do, especially now that this girl had appeared in his life. Nonetheless, he tightened his arms around Pansy's waist and closed his eyes.

He would have to figure the rest out later.

The sensation of being held was a new one to Pansy. Being clutched by a dying four year-old was nothing like being held. There was such comfort in being held, such reassurance in the feeling of someone stronger having their arms wrapped around you, keeping out the cold. She had always wondered why Arellia loved to be held by her; she now knew why.


	11. The Kiss

_**Don't Cry For Pain **_

_**Chapter 11: "The Kiss." **_

**A/N: Hey, sorry for the long wait on updating this. Also, I wrote a book and published it on Amazon Kindle. It's Plain Jane by Ashleigh Knight. It's $3.99. Check it out if you like my writing. **

**~ Jane**

* * *

**~***_**PP**_***~ **

Hey man, here's my plan  
I'm gonna break it  
Hey you, don't be sad  
Here's your chance, so take it

If you slap my face  
If you don't call  
Honestly, I don't care at all

Maybe I'm a bit complicated  
All I know is

I don't cry for pain  
Don't cry from fear - you know that  
I don't cry in the rain  
No, not a tear - you know that  
Before you leave, when you go  
I think you ought to know  
Don't cry for pain  
I only cry for love

Hey now, dry them tears  
You know we'd never make it  
'Cause you caught my eye, not my heart  
And play it safe, no I'm not that smart

I never meant, to be this complicated  
All I know is

I don't cry for pain  
Don't cry from fear - you know that  
I don't cry in the rain  
No, not a tear - you know that  
Before you leave, when you go  
I think you ought to know  
Don't cry for pain  
I only cry for love

I need something, making me defenseless  
I don't want another waste of time  
You can't hurt me so, I'm sure this can't be right

I don't cry for pain  
Don't cry from fear - you know that  
I don't cry in the rain  
No, not a tear - you know that  
Before you leave, when you go  
I think you ought to know

I don't cry for pain  
Don't cry from fear - you know that  
I don't cry in the rain  
No, not a tear - you know that  
Before you leave, when you go  
I think you ought to know  
Don't cry for pain  
I only cry for love

"I only cry for love," Pansy sung under her breath as she woke up.

She felt warm. But it was November, wasn't it? At least here. It was still September back home.

She opened her eyes and looked around the room. Lector was sitting in the chair, sketching. He looked up and smiled dazzlingly.

"You're awake," he said. "Are you hungry?"

"Yeah actually," Pansy said, sitting up.

He put his sketch on the desk and got the basket of food. He handed her a croissant and she ate it greedily. Then she remembered that he had lain with her and she blushed.

"You're lovely when you blush," he said suddenly.

"Um, thank you," she said softly, looking down.

He looked at her for a long moment, then cleared his throat.

"We're going to see my aunt, Lady Murisaki, today," he said. "I think you're well enough for an outing and I need her help deciding what to do with you. You can't stay in my dormitory forever you know."

"I hadn't thought about that," she said. "What do you think she'll say?"

"Well, she won't believe it unless you show her, but not like you did me," he said warningly. "Some small display of magic will be in order, levitation of a vase or some such thing. She'll know what to do."

"I'm not supposed to do magic in front of Muggles," she said with a sigh. "Oh well, I suppose it can't be helped."

"What's a Muggle?" he asked curiously.

"A non-magical person," she said. "I'm a witch and you're a Muggle."

"Interesting," he said. "I don't know that I like being called a Muggle. It makes you seem somehow superior to me."

"I am superior," she said. "I can do magic and you can't. It's not your fault, it's not fair, but it's how it is. Learn to live with it."

"And what if I don't?" he said, leaning forward in his chair, getting in her personal space, taking her breath away.

He was flirting with her again. She wasn't sure that she didn't like it.

"Look, you really need to stop flirting with me," she said. "You're going to give me a heart attack, and then you'll have a body to dispose of, and then where will we be?"

He smirked but backed off, saying nothing about it.

"You'll like Lady Murisaki, Pansy," he said. "She is a lady of the highest quality. Gentle, refined, kind, everything a woman ought to be. Yes, you will like her."

"You make her sound perfect," Pansy said, feeling a pang of jealousy.

"Perhaps she is," he said with a distant look in his eyes.

She hated Lady Murisaki, she decided. It wasn't reasonable, it wasn't fair but she did. She hated Lector too and he could get thrown in jail for all she cared.

He carved up an apple and gave her some, and she ate it sulkily. He noted her mood. She could tell by the curious way he looked at her.

"I have something I would like to show you something," he said suddenly.

She looked up, her mouth full of apple.

"Yeah?" she said around the apple.

He rose and took a sketch from his notebook, handing it to her. It was of a woman that looked like Hannibal. Pansy recognized her as Hannibal's mother from her visions of his past during her fall through time. Lady Lector was laughing in the sketch. She looked lovely.

"Your mother?" Pansy asked, not wanting him to know she knew. Things were complicated enough as they were. She didn't need to add to the situation.

"Yes," he said, looking distant again but this time for a different reason.

"She was very beautiful," she said, staring at the sketch intently. Hannibal had his mother's eyes. _Lector_, she reminded herself.

"Sometimes I can't remember what she looks like," he said softly, far away. He swallowed thickly. "It frightens me."

She looked up at him and their eyes met. He held her gaze, his eyes boring into hers intensely. There was so much pain behind the mask he wore, and for a brief moment he let her see him as he really was: a scared little boy who missed his family.

Pain shot through her heart like a knife. How could such a monster be so vulnerable and gentle? Why did she feel more for him than disgust and hatred? Why did she want to hold him until it was better?

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

Without meaning to, she reached out and touched his hand. His lips began to tremble and he opened his mouth to speak but no words came.

"Lector, I-" she began, only to be silenced by his fingers against her lips.

"Hannibal," he said softly. His fingers traced her jaw line. "Pansy… So lovely. So soft."

He leaned forward and she closed her eyes, waiting for him to kiss her. His lips were soft on hers, gentle. It was a chaste kiss, the kiss of a boy rather than a man. He was so young in so many ways.

His hand came around the back of her head and he tilted her head upward to get a better angle. He was inexperienced, more so than her, and it showed in his kiss. He didn't seem to feel the need for anything more than their lips pressed together. But that wasn't enough for her. She wanted more.

Her tongue came out to trace his bottom lip and he flinched in surprise but didn't pull back. Her tongue pushed past his lips and he opened his mouth eagerly for her. She slid her tongue against his and he moaned, wrapping his arms around her tightly, pressing her against his chest.

Very suddenly he pulled back. They breathed heavily and he looked confused.

"Forgive me," he said, releasing her. "I ought not to have done that."

He sounded so cold and distant that she almost could have believed that she had imagined his moment of vulnerability. He was pushing her away. It was for the best.

"It's alright," she said, trying to sound nonchalant. "Happens all the time."

"You are kissed often?" he asked with a frown.

"Don't be so surprised," she said. "I'm quite popular back home."

"Yes, I can see how that might be," he said, frowning more deeply. "You let boys kiss you often?"

"Don't judge," she said snappily. "Things are different in my time. People are a lot looser about that kind of thing."

"I see," he said.

"I doubt that," she muttered, irritated.

He had no right to judge her. Besides, she was bragging. The only boy she'd ever kissed was Draco. They'd had a couple of make-out sessions when things got boring at school but nothing more, and those were short lived. She'd never liked kissing Draco. He was good at it but she just didn't feel anything for him besides pity.

She sighed. Things were getting way complicated. Hopefully Lady Murisaki would be able to help because Pansy had no answers.


End file.
